NEWS- BANNER

4/6/16 Screwy weather led to a slow crappie bite again this week on the Corps lakes. Likely, the cold weather will put the crappies into a more normal schedule, pushing the peak of the spawn into the first weeks of May. time will tell, but until we see stable, warm temps, I expect a slower crappie bite. Looking at the long range forecast, it looks like it will be atleast another week until thinds really get moving again. Continued cold weather will push water temperatures back down to the low 40's this week. A few are being caught now in deeper water using live minnows and chartruese jigs. Towards the head of Hammond, up into crooked creek, anglers picked up some nice bass and a few pickerel using live shiners and small shad colored crankbaits.

Tioga Lake is OPEN now and a few people have been fishing there with mixed results. Prior to the cold snap, the bass fishing was pretty good, with anglers catching nice largemouth and smallmouth using jigs, creatures ,and jerkbaits. A few crappie were caught too, but again, this cold weather will really slow things down again.

On the flip side, trout fishing continues to be very good on Hamilton, Beechwood, and parts of Pine. Quite a few people have headed south to Slate Run area to fish the special regs section of Pine. This was recently stocked with some really nice trout! Many of the hatches had started a little earlier than expected and this cold snap should help push the major hatches back to the start of trout season. Anglers on Hamilton and Beechwood continued to do well with a variety of live baits, spinners, spoons, and flies. Fatheads and butterworms have been the most popular live baits. Plain silvers, gold, firetiger, and bright chartruese colors have been popular spinner and spoon colors. Anglers caught fish on flies too, using various streamers, blue quill wet flies, and stonefly patterns. Some used flies under a float on a spinning too. Give it a try sometime! I feel this a really underutilized technique for the spin fishermen, and when trout are keyed in on bugs, this is a great way to catch a few.